National Lawyers Guild - immigrationhttps://www.nlg.org/taxonomy/term/296
enIn court, 'guardian angels' aim to help immigrants facing deportationhttps://www.nlg.org/news/in-the-media/court-guardian-angels-aim-help-immigrants-facing-deportation
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Kate Linthicum </div>
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LA Times </div>
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<span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2015-02-17T00:00:00-05:00">Tue, 02/17/2015</span> </div>
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<a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-guardian-angels-20150217-story.html">View the original piece</a> </div>
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<h1 itemprop="name"><img alt="Immigration protest" data-baseurl="http://www.trbimg.com/img-54e2b10d/turbine/la-1913520-me-murrietaimmigrants-10-jpg-20150216" data-content-naturalheight="1299" data-content-naturalwidth="2048" data-height="350" data-ratio="16x9" data-width="600" itemprop="image" src="http://www.trbimg.com/img-54e2b10d/turbine/la-1913520-me-murrietaimmigrants-10-jpg-20150216/600/600x338" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.46667em; float: none; max-height: 100.699996948242%; width: auto !important;" title="Immigration protest" /></h1>
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<time data-datetime-clock="4:30 AM" data-datetime-day="17" data-datetime-daydiff="-1 days left" data-datetime-fullclock="4:30:00 AM" data-datetime-hour="4 AM" data-datetime-month="February" data-datetime-monthshort="Feb." data-datetime-timezone="PST" data-datetime-weekday="Tuesday" data-datetime-weekdayshort="Tue." data-datetime-year="2015" datetime="2015-02-17T04:30:00PST"> </time><p><strong>In court, 'guardian angels' aim to help immigrants facing deportation</strong></p>
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<p>Inside a small immigration courtroom, a handful of children and teenagers wait for their moment before a judge.</p>
<p>Some are accompanied by a relative or a lawyer. Others are alone. Judge Ashley Tabaddor moves through the deportation hearings quickly.</p>
<p>"Sir, you really need to educate yourself about the option of special immigrant juvenile status," she tells a man who is there with his young son.</p>
<p>"You have to be here at the next hearing," she instructs an unaccompanied teenage girl. "Or I will have to order you removed in your absence."</p>
<p>In the first row of the seating area, Maria Paiva quietly scribbles on a pad of paper. Dressed in a T-shirt that depicts an angel hovering over two small children, Paiva is here to record any inconsistencies in the court proceedings. While she watches, two other volunteers wearing matching shirts take turns approaching young immigrants after their hearings to offer information about free legal and social services.</p>
<p>They call themselves "guardian angels." They say they are protectors of the tens of thousands of children apprehended at the U.S. border in recent years after fleeing rising violence in Central America.</p>
<p>Because the government does not provide lawyers to immigrants facing removal, many of the children have ended up navigating complex deportation proceedings alone. Last fiscal year, 72% of children in deportation hearings were not represented by an attorney, according to federal data analyzed by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.</p>
<p>"They don't understand what their rights are," said Paiva, who emigrated from Peru in the 1980s. "I want to make sure that the judge knows I am there, taking notes."</p>
<p>Paiva leads the program with Alexia Salvatierra, a Lutheran pastor who hatched the idea last summer after hearing that children's deportation hearings were being fast-tracked through the court system.</p>
<p>More than three-fourths of children's court cases closed in the second half of last year resulted in removal orders, according to the federal Executive Office of Immigrant Review. In the vast majority of those cases, the deportation orders were issued in absentia because the children did not show up for their hearings.</p>
<p>Tens of thousands of cases are still being processed by the courts, with some on hold as the children apply for asylum through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services or seek other forms of relief.</p>
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<div><span data-role="socialshare_sharetext">[The child immigrants] don't understand what their rights are. I want to make sure that the judge knows I am there, taking notes.</span>- Maria Paiva, volunteer guardian angel
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<p>The volunteers — mostly clergy or lay people from the Lutheran Church or other faiths — have been trained by the National Lawyers' Guild to monitor possible violations of the children's legal rights. They fill out forms to track the time frames given by judges for finding a lawyer or for various parts of the asylum process.</p>
<p>"You become a witness in a very important way," Salvatierra said. About 40 volunteers have been trained so far.</p>
<p>The program is one piece of a larger humanitarian response by Southern California's religious community.</p>
<p>After protesters favoring stricter immigration enforcement turned away busloads of recently arrived women and children near a Border Patrol processing station in Murrieta last summer, a coalition of faith leaders and service providers sat down in Los Angeles and plotted their own course of action.</p>
<p>"It's more than legal representation," said Guillermo Torres, whose group, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, helped organize the meetings. "There's a whole support network that needs to be built around them."</p>
<p>Months later, many of their initiatives are getting off the ground.</p>
<p>The Episcopal Diocese has begun training volunteers to help the children and their families locate mental and health services. The Methodist Church has created a network of community centers where immigrants can receive emergency food and attend free legal clinics. The church is also planning a summer camp for the recent arrivals.</p>
<p>Federal data show that in the last year and a half, more than 3,200 children detained alone at the border have been released to guardians in Los Angeles County while they face deportation proceedings. But locating the children for outreach isn't easy.</p>
<p>One place volunteers are likely to encounter them is at immigration court.</p>
<p>The guardian angel volunteers sit in twice a week on immigration hearings, held on the top floors of a nondescript office building near Pershing Square. Before they enter, they don their shirts, which feature a popular image of an angel that many Christian Latinos hang above children's beds for protection.</p>
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<figure data-role="imgsize_item" imgheight="150" imgratio="16x9" imgwidth="250"><a data-content-media-present="true" href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-texas-judge-injunction-immigration-20150216-story.html"><img alt="Obama administration puts immigration protections on hold after order" data-baseurl="http://www.trbimg.com/img-54e35407/turbine/la-na-nn-texas-judge-injunction-immigration-20150216" data-content-naturalheight="900" data-content-naturalwidth="1600" data-height="150" data-ratio="16x9" data-width="250" itemprop="image" src="http://www.trbimg.com/img-54e35407/turbine/la-na-nn-texas-judge-injunction-immigration-20150216/250/250x141" style="float: none; max-height: 100.699996948242%; width: auto !important;" title="Obama administration puts immigration protections on hold after order" /></a></figure><div data-role="lightbox_metadata"><a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-texas-judge-injunction-immigration-20150216-story.html">Obama administration puts immigration protections on hold after order</a></div>
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<p>Often, they pray that God will guide them to the families that need help the most and that "the judge will have a soft heart, not a hard one."</p>
<p>On a recent afternoon, Torres, Paiva and a third volunteer, Jessica Carroll, took seats in Tabaddor's courtroom. The judge took a hard line on several immigrants who arrived without a lawyer, including a woman who hadn't hired an attorney to represent her 11-year-old son even though Tabaddor had previously given the boy a continuance so the mother could find one.</p>
<p>"I don't have the money," said the woman, a strawberry picker in Oxnard. She paid a smuggler to bring her son north from El Salvador last summer after he was abused by a family member and gang violence started growing.</p>
<p>"Well ma'am, we gave you a list of legal aid providers," the judge responded. "So I'm trying to see what did you try to do to get an attorney, especially when you were given a list of 30 of them that wouldn't cost anything."</p>
<p>The woman started weeping, and Tabaddor told her she could have a few minutes to leave the courtroom and make calls to lawyers.</p>
<p>Torres and Carroll, the volunteers, met her in the hallway.</p>
<p>"I don't want to be separated from him," the woman said, her chest heaving.</p>
<p>"I know," Carroll said. A Salvadoran immigrant who was brought illegally to the U.S. as a child, Carroll now works as a legal secretary.</p>
<p>While Carroll comforted the mother and son, Torres got on the phone, calling attorney friends who owed him favors. One agreed to represent the boy.</p>
<p>When the woman returned to court, she provided Tabaddor the name of her new attorney, and her son was given another continuance.</p>
<p>After the hearing, she embraced Torres and Carroll, who handed her a small card with information about accessing other services. On the back was the image of an angel.</p>
<p><em><a href="mailto:kate.linthicum@latimes.com">kate.linthicum@latimes.com</a></em></p>
<p><em>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/katelinthicum">@katelinthicum</a></em></p>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/296" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">immigration</a> </div>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/488" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">NLG-LA</a> </div>
Wed, 18 Feb 2015 19:16:45 +0000Tasha1639 at https://www.nlg.orghttps://www.nlg.org/news/in-the-media/court-guardian-angels-aim-help-immigrants-facing-deportation#commentsGang or no gang, many immigrants legally stymied by injunctionshttps://www.nlg.org/news/in-the-media/gang-or-no-gang-many-immigrants-legally-stymied-injunctions
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Haya El Nasser </div>
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Al Jazeera America </div>
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<span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2015-01-02T00:00:00-05:00">Fri, 01/02/2015</span> </div>
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<a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/1/2/immigrant-gang-connection.html">View the original piece</a> </div>
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<p>SANTA ANA, Calif. — As head of deportation and defense organizing for RAIZ, a migrant-led group in Orange County focused on stopping the deportation of immigrants, Alexis Nava Teodoro’s caseload is brimming with people who qualify for protection under President Barack Obama’s new immigration plan but are too terrified to apply.</p>
<p>Nava comes face to face every day with immigrants who have no criminal record but might have once been gang members or, much more frustrating for him, who just happen to live in a gang neighborhood and are automatically suspect because of geography.</p>
<p>For them, the slightest connection to gangs — however tenuous — may lead to detention and deportation rather than the legal status they dream of when they apply. This legal barrier may affect countless undocumented people, but it has been lost in the excitement over <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/11/20/obama-announces-highlyanticipatedimmigrationactions.html" target="_blank">Obama’s executive action</a> in November that will extend protection to an estimated 5 million immigrants here illegally. The plan expands the number of people eligible for deferred deportation if they arrived in the U.S. as children or if they are the parents of American citizens.</p>
<p>But first, they must apply.</p>
<p>That’s a scary proposition for undocumented immigrants who may live in a neighborhood covered by a gang injunction. For them, the application process is a minefield that might flag Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and may land them in detention and lead to deportation.</p>
<p>Gang injunctions are restraining orders filed by prosecutors that restrict specific and unnamed gang members from a host of activities. They often include curfews, limit social interaction and may even prohibit wearing clothing that matches gang colors. Injunctions are so broad that many residents who live in a targeted neighborhood find themselves linked to gangs just because of their location. And if any are relatives or friends of a suspected gang member, there is an added layer of guilt by association.</p>
<p>“A lot of different people can be in an area covered by a gang injunction,” said Paromita Shah, associate director of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild in Washington, D.C. “A gang injunction is meant to bar conduct in an area so that people suspected of being gang members do not talk to one another. It could be based on age or whether they’re driving in the same car.”</p>
<p>Much of the information goes into state and federal gang databases that are often secret. So coming forward to apply for legal status without knowing whether their names will pop up on a gang list is a gamble.</p>
<p>“There isn’t a lot of information on who is on a gang injunction,” said Fawn Bekam, a law student working at the University of California at Irvine School of Law’s Immigrant Rights Clinic.</p>
<p>“This is a huge issue for individuals who may be on gang injunctions and don’t know it,” said Amelia Alvarez, another law student who works at the clinic. “It’s prevented people from applying because they fear they may be denied.”</p>
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<p>Gang tattoos cover the arms of one of Nava’s clients, but he hasn’t belonged to a gang for more than seven years. He is now in his 30s and eligible under the expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. He doesn’t have a criminal record. He works in an auto shop and has two children who were born in the U.S., giving him even more protection under the new Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA).</p>
<p>But this client, who didn’t want to be identified, refuses to apply and continues to live in the shadows. “He’s afraid,” Nava said. “He’s completely afraid of applying.”</p>
<p>The bar for anyone with even the most remote association with a gang — from living in a known gang neighborhood to walking from school with a suspected gang member — is so high that it can block qualifying immigrants from even trying to obtain legal status. </p>
<p>“It ignores the fact that people change,” Shah said. So, for someone who had actually been part of a gang, however many years ago, there is almost no recourse.</p>
<p>“A person can apply and make a case of how they were unfairly placed on gang injunction lists,” said Sameer Ashar, a law professor and a co-director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic. “But it’s definitely a gamble.”</p>
<p>There are few cases of people petitioning to be removed from the list, especially those who arrived here illegally.</p>
<p>Uriel Molina, a San Juan Capistrano resident, was the first Orange County resident in 20 years to have himself removed from a gang injunction, served to alleged members of the Varrio Viejo gang in 2008. He had to agree not to break any of the injunction’s rules for one year before the district attorney agreed to take him off the gang list — a label that is often compared to a scarlet letter.</p>
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<figure><div data-alt="Gang member" data-class="" data-picture=""><img alt="Gang member" src="http://america.aljazeera.com/content/ajam/articles/2015/1/2/immigrant-gang-connection/jcr:content/mainpar/textimage/image.adapt.990.high.1420220866537.jpg" style="vertical-align: middle; width: 350px;" /></div>
<div><figcaption>A Street Villains gang member who was arrested by Los Angeles police officers.</figcaption>Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images</div>
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<p>Los Angeles established the nation’s first gang injunctions in the early 1980s. In 2007 the Youth Justice Coalition negotiated with the city to create a process to allow people to petition for removal from the injunction. In Los Angeles there are currently more than 46 permanent gang injunctions, targeting the activities of 79 street gangs.</p>
<p>Only two people have successfully petitioned to be removed from the list, but advocates say there will be more now that more immigrants are eligible for deportation relief.</p>
<p>“To date, we have not received any requests for removal from gang injunction enforcement in light of expanded DACA and DAPA eligibility for undocumented immigrants,” said Rob Wilcox, director of community engagement and outreach for the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office.</p>
<p>“The thing that’s really hampered our ability is the lack of information on who’s on a gang injunction,” Bekam said.</p>
<p>Wilcox said that so far, “There have not been any requests for a list of names covered by an injunction, in light of expanded DACA and DAPA eligibility for undocumented immigrants.”</p>
<p>The City Attorney’s Office says gang injunctions “have proven to be one of the most effective legal tools available to law enforcement in suppressing and disrupting the criminal and often violent activities of Los Angeles street gangs and protecting the communities and neighborhoods they terrorize.”</p>
<p>But in July a judge struck down Santa Barbara’s efforts to file a gang injunction because she was not persuaded of its benefits. In Orange County alone, there are 13 gang injunctions that basically say, “You can’t do certain things in a geographic area,” said Belinda Escobosa Helzer, director of the ACLU of Southern California’s Orange County and Inland Empire office, who litigated one of the gang injunctions in the city of Orange on the grounds that it violated due process.</p>
<p>“The district attorney and police department do not have the authority on their own to decide who is and who isn’t a gang member,” she said.</p>
<p>The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that there has to be a process in place to determine if someone should be part of a gang injunction.</p>
<p>“The people it affects the most are people who have either minimal or no contact with the police,” Escobosa Helzer said. “Injunctions generally affect young adults. What we saw is a lot of kids who maybe have a marijuana ticket, minor drinking, no serious crimes.”</p>
<p>In Orange County, all the gang injunctions are in low-income communities of color — mostly Latino, she said. “Probably 75 percent or so of the people who are affected by gang injunctions probably have some immigration status issues,” she said.</p>
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<p>Complicating matters is that now that <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/11/14/california-feloniestomisdemeanors.html" target="_blank">California voters approved Proposition 47</a>, some minor offenses that were felonies have been bumped down to misdemeanors. It’s unclear how that will affect undocumented immigrants’ chances at deportation relief.</p>
<p>On top of that, a memo from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to ICE and Customs and Border Protection outlines new policies for the arrest and deportation of undocumented immigrants.</p>
<p>Among the many enforcement priorities: “Aliens convicted of an offense for which an element was active participation in a criminal street gang” or “aliens not younger than 16 years of age who intentionally participated in an organized criminal gang to further the illegal activity of the gang.”</p>
<p>That seems to ease the restrictions on eligibility because it specifically cites a conviction or intentionally helping with illegal gang activity. “What’s not yet clear to us is whether this new specific provision is helpful or hurtful,” Ashar said.</p>
<p>Advocates hope that it will end denials based solely on being on a gang list or associating with gang members, Alvarez said.</p>
<p>But there is much confusion over what constitutes furthering the illegal activity of a gang. Can people be barred from applying for deportation relief if they live in a gang neighborhood and don’t abide by a curfew imposed by a gang injunction?</p>
<p>“Let’s say you’re out past 10 and you get arrested for violating a court order,” Escobosa Helzer said. “Let’s say you plead guilty. What you’re pleading guilty to is being an active participant of the gang … It can have a broad effect on individuals who are not committing serious crime.”</p>
<p>Just how broad may not be known for years to come. In the meantime, “people should be very, very careful if they have any kind of gang-related conviction charge on their records, even juvenile crimes,” Ashar said.</p>
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<h3 class="field-label">
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/381" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">National Immigration Project</a> </div>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/296" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">immigration</a> </div>
Mon, 26 Jan 2015 17:51:36 +0000Tasha1623 at https://www.nlg.orghttps://www.nlg.org/news/in-the-media/gang-or-no-gang-many-immigrants-legally-stymied-injunctions#commentsSan Fernando Migrant Massacre: How US, Mexican and Latin American Governments Share Responsibilityhttps://www.nlg.org/news/in-the-media/san-fernando-migrant-massacre-how-us-mexican-and-latin-american-governments-share
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Camilo Perez Bustillo and Azadeh N. Shahshahani </div>
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Truthout </div>
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<span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-10-07T00:00:00-04:00">Tue, 10/07/2014</span> </div>
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<a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/26658-san-fernando-migrant-massacre-how-us-mexican-and-latin-american-governments-share-responsibility">View the original piece</a> </div>
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<p>Mexico is the leading case in Latin America of the devastating effects of US policies related to migration, free trade and the so-called "drug war." The victims include tens of thousands of migrants who undertake the long, difficult journey toward the United States through Mexican territory from Central America and beyond. An international tribunal has recently concluded that the San Fernando Massacre of August 2010 is a crucial example underlining the convergent responsibilities of the governments of Mexico, the United States and countries of origin.</p>
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<h3>Human rights advocates have long alleged that Mexican . . . authorities . . . shared responsibility for this and similar incidents ultimately attributable to Mexico's role in US-promoted efforts to contain and reduce the flow of migrants heading to the United States through Mexican territory.</h3>
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<p>Migrant rights defenders throughout Mexico recently commemorated the fourth anniversary of the massacre, which resulted in the death of 72 migrants in transit, including 13 women, en route to the United States from six countries. Of those killed, 24 were originally from Honduras, 14 from El Salvador, 13 from Guatemala, five from Ecuador, four from Brazil and one from India. Eleven have yet to be identified, due to the mishandling of evidence from the site of the crime and the bodies as a result of flawed forensic procedures. At least two survivors (from Ecuador and Honduras) are currently in witness protection programs, due to recurrent threats to their lives. San Fernando is located in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, about an hour and a half from the United States border.</p>
<p>The massacre was immediately blamed on Mexico's most violent drug cartel, a shadowy group with paramilitary origins, known as Los Zetas. But human rights advocates have long alleged that Mexican civilian, police and military authorities at all levels of government (federal, state, and local) shared responsibility for this and similar incidents ultimately attributable to Mexico's role in US-promoted efforts to contain and reduce the flow of migrants heading to the United States through Mexican territory.</p>
<p>This massacre is the worst single incident in Mexico's bloody US-backed "drug war," which has ravaged the country in the last seven years, producing over 125,000 civilian victims, some 25,000 forced disappearances and more than 250,000 people who have been internally displaced or forced into exile. The victims during this period also include an estimated 20,000 migrants who have been kidnapped each year since 2007 and countless others who have been extorted, assaulted and raped (estimates indicate that 80 percent of all migrant women and girls are victims of sexual abuse or rape). The San Fernando Massacre is also the worst single human rights crime in Mexican history since the October 2, 1968, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlatelolco_massacre" target="_blank">massacre of students in Tlatelolco</a>, in Mexico City in 1968.</p>
<p>San Fernando, at the epicenter of the country's "drug war," is also the site where some 47 mass graves, containing at least 193 bodies, were discovered seven months after the massacre, in April 2011. Only 30 percent of these bodies have been identified thus far, but most of those whose identities or places of origin have been confirmed are also migrants, primarily of Mexican, Central American and Asian origin.</p>
<p><strong>The Massacre</strong></p>
<p>Investigative journalists in both Mexico and the <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/investigations/unravelling-mysteries-of-mexicos-san-fernando-massacre">United States</a> have gradually<a href="http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2012/08/their-dreams-ended-in-san-fernando.html">reconstructed the immediate circumstances</a> which led first to the massacre and then to the mass graves:</p>
<blockquote><p>That afternoon in August 22, 2010, … two freight trucks were traveling on Highway 101. About nine miles north of San Fernando, the hopes of the migrants ended, and their nightmare began; they encountered three vehicles blocking the highway carrying armed men with their faces covered.</p>
<p>"We're Zetas," they identified themselves, then asked the migrants to get off the trucks. Then they took them in pickup trucks to the warehouse of an abandoned ranch. There, 58 men and 14 women were taken down off the trucks and placed against the walls in the store room. First, they questioned them to find out where they were coming from and what they did for a living. They all denied they were working for the Gulf Cartel.</p>
<p>Their captors wanted to force them to work for them, but the migrants refused the offer. In the face of such a refusal, they made them lie down on the floor with their faces (facing) down. They told them not to look up and then shot them with bursts of bullets from assault rifles. To make sure nobody was left alive, they fired the coup de grace into their heads.</p>
<p>A man from Ecuador who was not hit by the bursts of gunfire and whose coup de grace went into his neck and came out through his jaw pretended he was dead and waited until the executioners left. He left the ranch and walked almost 15 miles until he found some Marines and asked for help. "The massacre was a little while ago," he told them, but they didn't believe him.</p>
<p>The incident was reported to their superiors, who ordered an aerial reconnaissance of the area. That afternoon, when the Army helicopter was flying near the store room, they were attacked.</p>
<p>It was getting dark on August 23, and the Marines withdrew to Matamoros. But they came back to the ranch the next day with reinforcements. There they found the 72 bodies.</p>
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<p><strong>The Hearing</strong></p>
<p>An international jury<a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/26658-san-fernando-migrant-massacre-how-us-mexican-and-latin-american-governments-share-responsibility#a1">*</a> of human rights scholars, defenders and migration policy experts from several countries convened as part of a three-year inquiry by the Permanent People's Tribunal (PPT), successor to the Russell Tribunal, which investigated US war crimes in Vietnam and Southeast Asia in the 1960s. The jury heard live testimony in Mexico City in August 2013, presented by family members of victims of the massacre from Guatemala and Brazil and from the mother of a Honduran migrant who disappeared under similar circumstances and who, it is suspected, may be among the victims of the mass graves.</p>
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<h3>The jury concluded that the US and Mexican governments are jointly responsible for a generalized pattern of grave human rights violations committed against migrants in transit on Mexican territory, on their way to the United States, between 2010 and 2014.</h3>
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<p>Angela Pineda of Chiquimula, Guatemala, testified that she lost five members of her family in the massacre, including her husband, daughter, son, daughter-in-law and a cousin who were all traveling together. Maria da Gloria Aires of Brazil, from the southeastern region of Minas Gerais, appeared before the tribunal in memory of her young nephew, Juliard, 19, who died in the massacre together with his friend Herminio, 24.</p>
<p>Pineda and Aires complained bitterly to the tribunal about the fact that both of them learned of the death of their family members from TV and radio news reports, rather than from the governments of Mexico or their countries, and that the bodies of Aires' nephew and of Pineda's daughter Mayra had not been adequately identified and had either been sent mistakenly first to other countries or switched with other remains.</p>
<p>Other victims included Yedmi Victoria Castro, 15, of Pasaquina, El Salvador, who was seeking to be reunited with her mother, Mariluz Castro, who had migrated previously to New York.</p>
<p><strong>Summary of Jury's findings</strong></p>
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<h3>The failure to achieve comprehensive immigration reform in the United States has exacerbated the negative effects of US policies, including the increasing separation and fragmentation of families as a result of increased deportations due to stepped-up measures of interior enforcement.</h3>
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<p>The jury concluded that the US and Mexican governments are jointly responsible for a generalized pattern of grave human rights violations committed against migrants in transit on Mexican territory, on their way to the United States, between 2010 and 2014. The jury also concluded that the massacre was the predictable and thus preventable result of actions and omissions by Mexican authorities responsible for systematic, egregious and recurrent human rights violations against migrants in transit. These violations include the Mexican government's failure to protect migrants in transit from death or injury due to serious abuses committed by drug traffickers and human traffickers in complicity with Mexican authorities.</p>
<p>The jury concluded that these abuses constituted a policy of state terror against migrants (many of them of indigenous origin and African descent and increasing numbers who are women and minors) because of the enhanced vulnerability associated with their undocumented status, within the context of the 72 victims of the San Fernando Massacre of August 2010 and of the 47 mass graves containing at least 193 additional bodies found in the same municipality in April 2011. The jury also concluded that the governments of the countries of origin (Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Ecuador, Brazil) of the migrant victims of the San Fernando Massacre and mass graves shared responsibility with the Mexican and US governments for fostering the conditions of vulnerability that paved the way for these mass crimes. This includes adoption of neoliberal free trade policies and committing human rights violations in these migrants' communities of origin, which forced them to migrate in search of a dignified life.</p>
<p><strong>Responsibility of the US Government</strong></p>
<p>The jury's conclusions emphasize the extent to which US migration policies have resulted in the militarization of the US-Mexico border and the criminalization of irregular flows of migrants from Mexico and beyond. This includes unprecedented joint efforts by the United States and Mexico to apply this approach to migrants in transit, primarily of Central American and Andean origin, on Mexican territory, at the same time as the combined effects of the neoliberal free trade policies promoted by NAFTA and CAFTA have intensified migration flows from both Mexico and Central America.</p>
<p>The jury also explored the implications of the current mass exodus of Central American migrant youth, children and women on their rights to temporary humanitarian protection, refuge, asylum and family reunification.</p>
<p>The failure to achieve comprehensive immigration reform in the United States has exacerbated the negative effects of US policies, including the increasing separation and fragmentation of families as a result of increased deportations due to stepped-up measures of interior enforcement.</p>
<p>At the same time, the United States has increased aid to Mexican authorities as part of the so-called "drug war" (pursuant to the Mérida Initiative, México's equivalent of Plan Colombia, and the North American Partnership for Security and Prosperity, the national security component of NAFTA). The police and immigration forces receiving Merida Initiative aid have been repeatedly implicated in violations of the human rights of migrants.</p>
<p><strong>Responsibility of the Mexican Government</strong></p>
<p>Other issues or cases presented to the PPT in Mexico include recurrent patterns of harassment and threats against migrant shelters, rights defenders and migrant caravans organized to protest policies which violate migrant rights; policies of arbitrary and abusive detention and other forms of inhuman and degrading treatment of migrants in transit on Mexican territory - including torture.</p>
<p>The jury's findings are also based on declassified official documents from US government agencies - including the US Department of Homeland Security, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), the National Security Agency (NSA), the DEA, US Embassy in Mexico and Consulates - analyzed and posted in November 2013 <a href="http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB445" target="_blank">by the National Security Archive</a> at George Washington University, regarding the context which led to the San Fernando Massacre and mass graves. These documents further illustrate that the Mexican government had advance knowledge of the extent of the dangers faced by migrants, yet failed to take action.</p>
<p>These documents include cables from the US Embassy in Mexico City dating back to August, 2007, that highlight the perils confronting migrants on transit through Mexico due to the combined effects of violence from drug cartels such as the Zetas, complicity by government officials at all levels and lack of investigation and prosecution of crimes committed against migrants. This includes increasing numbers of abuses (such as assaults and thefts) against migrants attributed to the military as they were assigned key public security duties in regions such as Tamaulipas as part of the "drug war."</p>
<p><a href="http://www.migrantologos.mx/textosmateriales/REVISTA%20PROCESO%20Migracion%20C.A%20por%20Mexico.pdf" target="_blank">The June 15, 2009, issue of Proceso</a>, Mexico's most widely circulated weekly news magazine, featured threats of mass kidnappings against migrants as its cover story and included detailed reports emphasizing and updating the same factors reflected in the August 2007 cables from the embassy, including specifically heightened dangers for migrants in Tamaulipas.</p>
<p>Shortly afterward, a July 2009 DEA Assessment of the Zetas drew attention to their increasing power and collaboration with the Guatemalan military Special Forces unit known as the <em>Kaibiles</em>. The Kaibiles have been linked by the UN-backed Truth Commission in 1999 and by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in several key decisions over the past decade, to many of the worst and most recurrent human rights abuses committed during the genocidal internal conflict in Guatemala, including several of the bloodiest massacres characterized by especially brutal tactics. Links between the Zetas and both active members and deserters from the Kaibiles were also referred to by a DEA cable dated May 28, 2010.</p>
<p>One of the expert witnesses in the PPT hearings regarding the San Fernando cases in Mexico City in August 2013 is a former brigadier general in the Mexican Army named Francisco Gallardo, who became a political prisoner after being thrown in jail for his efforts to promote the creation of a human rights ombudsman within the Armed Forces. He linked the tactics and methodologies characteristic of the Kaibiles and paramilitary forces in Colombia to those employed by the perpetrators of the San Fernando Massacre and mass graves. Zetas and former Kaibiles were later blamed for a massacre involving 29 victims in Guatemala's remote Petén region in May 2011 (shortly after the mass graves were found in San Fernando), which resulted in the forced displacement of 68 families (more than 250 people) who fled over the Mexican border to the region near Tenosique, Tabasco, and were later arbitrarily deported by Mexican authorities in December 2011.</p>
<p>A March 25, 2010, cable from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) emphasizes "escalating violence in the region" of Tamaulipas, one of those with the highest numbers of troops concentrated in a single area in the country. This document also cites "corroborated and reliable information" regarding the widespread use by the Zetas of roadblocks along local highways. According to the National Security Archive's analysis, "this is the first mention in the declassified documents of roadblocks used by the cartels in Tamaulipas, which was the method used to stop buses carrying passengers and carry out the San Fernando massacres."</p>
<p>Another embassy report soon afterward (April 2010) from its Narcotics Affairs section, emphasized the extent to which the Zetas' activities in the country's northern region, including Tamaulipas, were characterized by "near total impunity in the face of compromised local security forces" and by increasing incidents of armed conflict between the Zetas and other cartels over control of this region. Within this context of inter-cartel warfare, the March 25, 2010, cable also warns that "a retaliatory strike by Los Zetas is likely inevitable." Some have argued that the August 2010 massacre could be explained in part as an acute expression of such conflicts between cartels over the control of human trafficking flowing into San Fernando and Tamaulipas.</p>
<p>Fundamental human rights cannot be freely exercised within contexts characterized by convergent processes of state, structural and systemic violence that make a dignified and secure life impossible in communities and countries of origin of migrants. These forms of violence include militarization, paramilitarism and the effects of neoliberal "free market" and "free trade" policies, mega-development projects involving mining, and other forms of exploitation of natural resources which result in environmental devastation and climate change. For their complicity in creating and perpetuating this violence against migrants, the governments of Mexico, the United States and countries of origin must be held to account.</p>
<p> * The Permanent People's Tribunal jury included: Dr. Jorge Bustamante, ex UN Special Rapporteur for the Human Rights of Migrants, COLEF; Iver Orstavik, Rafto Foundation for Human Rights, Bergen, Noruega; Leticia Calderón, Instituto Mora, Mexico City; Laura Carlsen, Americas Program, Center for International Policy-CIP, Washington DC/Mexico City; José Rosario Marroquín, Centro PRO DH; Pedro González Gómez, Asamblea de Migrantes Indígenas del DF; David Velasco, ITESO; Jesús Antonio de la Torre Rangel, UAA; Luis Daniel Vázquez, FLACSO; Miguel Pulido, director, FUNDAR; Azadeh Shahshahani, president, National Lawyers' Guild, US; Hans Egil Offerdal, theologian/human rights scholar, Univ. de Bergen, Noruega; Immanuel Ness, CUNY Center for Workers Education, Brooklyn College; Fiona McPhail, jurist, representative of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers (UK); Rosa Martha Zárate, Alianza de ExBraceros del Norte; Gilberto Parra, Centro Jalisciense de Atención al Adulto Mayor y Migrante, Guadalajara.</p>
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<p>Copyright, Truthout.</p>
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<p><em>Camilo Perez Bustillo is research professor at the graduate program in Human Rights of the Universidad Autonoma de la Ciudad de Mexico (UACM, Autonomous University of Mexico City) and currently visiting professor in the departments of Criminal Justice and Government of New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.</em></p>
<p><em>Azadeh N. Shahshahani is a human rights attorney based in Atlanta and president of the National Lawyers Guild. In August 2013, Shahshahani traveled to Mexico City to serve as part of the jury for the Permanent People's Tribunal's inquiry into the San Fernando Massacre and other human rights violations committed against migrants in Mexico en route to the United States. You can follow her on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/ashahshahani" target="_blank">@ashahshahani</a>.</em></p>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/296" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">immigration</a> </div>
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Tue, 07 Oct 2014 18:17:55 +0000Tasha1544 at https://www.nlg.orghttps://www.nlg.org/news/in-the-media/san-fernando-migrant-massacre-how-us-mexican-and-latin-american-governments-share#commentsGeorgia teams up with ICE to target Latinoshttps://www.nlg.org/news/in-the-media/georgia-teams-ice-target-latinos-0
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Azadeh Shahshahani </div>
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Al Jazeera America </div>
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<span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-08-08T00:00:00-04:00">Fri, 08/08/2014</span> </div>
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<a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/8/georgia-ice-latinosundocumentedimmigrantsdiscrimination.html">View the original piece</a> </div>
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<p class="articleOpinion-standfirst opinion-standfirst" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 0px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25px; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);">New report documents discriminatory practices by law enforcement</p>
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<div class="articleOpinion-dateTime opinion-dateTime" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-size: 13px; line-height: 15px;"><span class="date" style="box-sizing: border-box;">August 8, 2014</span> <span class="time" style="box-sizing: border-box;">6:00AM ET</span></div>
<div class="articleOpinion-containerByline" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 10px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px; color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span class="articleOpinion-byline" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap;">by <a class="articleOpinion-byline--link" href="http://america.aljazeera.com/profiles/s/azadeh-shahshahani.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(38, 119, 185); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;" title="Azadeh Shahshahani">Azadeh Shahshahani</a> <span class="articleOpinion-contact" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block;"> <span class="articleOpinion-twitter" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> <a class="articleOpinion-twitter--link" href="http://www.twitter.com/ashahshahani" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(37, 170, 226); text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="@ashahshahani">@ashahshahani</a></span></span></span></div>
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<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">In June 2011 while traveling on Lawrenceville Highway in Gwinnett County, Georgia, Bonnie Horton and her husband were stopped at a roadblock and surrounded by uniformed officers and police vehicles. Bonnie remembers seeing at least five cars pulled over on the side of the road and young children and babies in at least two of those cars. </p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">All cars proceeding on that road were stopped at the roadblock. Most cars stopped for about a minute. As Bonnie and her husband approached the roadblock, they had their windows rolled down. She witnessed a man being taken out of one of the cars by officers, possibly being arrested. Alongside the same car stood a woman with a baby. Another car next to theirs had drivers and passengers inside who appeared to be Latino. She heard an officer asking them to provide proof of citizenship. However, Bonnie and her husband, who are Caucasian, were only asked to show proof of insurance and residence in Gwinnett County. They showed their driver’s licenses as evidence of residency, and were allowed to proceed without incident.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">In 2011, Georgia passed <a href="http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/05/azadeh-shahshahani-georgia-hb87.php" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(38, 119, 185); text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">HB 87</a>, which empowers local police to investigate the immigration status of individuals where they have probable cause that an offense, including a driving infraction, has been committed. Since the law’s passage, suspicions about discriminatory treatment of Latinos and immigrants because of their physical appearance has become commonplace in the state. A recent <a href="http://www.acluga.org/files/2214/0665/8393/GA_Prejudice-Policing_WEB.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(38, 119, 185); text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">report</a> by several immigrants’ rights advocacy organizations — including the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, and the NYU Law School Immigrant Rights Clinic — confirms such suspicions.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Based on a review of data obtained from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the report demonstrates that discriminatory actions are ongoing. From 2007 to 2013, ICE’s practice of requesting the extended incarceration of an individual because of suspicion about their immigration status — known as ICE detainers — <a href="http://www.acluga.org/files/2214/0665/8393/GA_Prejudice-Policing_WEB.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(38, 119, 185); text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">rose</a> from 75 in 2007 to 12,952 in 2013 (through June 2013) — an increase of 17,169 percent. Moreover, 96 percent of those targeted in 2013 are of “dark or medium complexion,” up from 66.7 percent in 2007.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">In many ways, the data affirm the continuing injustice suffered by immigrant communities in Georgia. Local and state law enforcement have relied on three main sets of initiatives to apprehend, detain and remove immigrants: an ICE partnership agreement between Georgia law enforcement agencies and the federal government known as the <a href="http://www.ice.gov/287g/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(38, 119, 185); text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">287(g) program</a>, the federal Secure Communities program and HB 87. The implementation of each of these initiatives has been accompanied by a disproportionate focus on people of color, stoking concerns of racial profiling.</p>
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<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The harmful effects of HB 87 have been felt across the state of Georgia. Immigrants and people of color feel that they have been subjected to racial profiling and other abusive policing practices.</p>
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<div class="pullQuote-quote" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.75em 2em; font-size: 20px; line-height: 34px; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(219, 78, 0); text-align: center;">ICE records indicate that an estimated 48,135 American-born children had a parent arrested by ICE in Georgia and at least 17,497 individuals had a spouse arrested by ICE from 2007 to 2013.</div>
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<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">As witnessed during forums organized by the ACLU of Georgia and the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights around the state, fear and mistrust of the police is commonplace. Community members reported avoiding certain areas of the state because of police surveillance and harassment. Others say they are reluctant to call or avoid calling the police to report crime because of their immigration status — fearing they will be detained or investigated. This is troubling, but not surprising. Many law enforcement analysts and police chiefs have cautioned against putting local police in the position of implementing federal immigration laws, saying the practice will alienate communities of color and endanger the public.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The newly released report confirms that increasing cooperation between ICE and local law enforcement has in fact disproportionately affected people of color. In 2007, ICE identified 66.7 percent of individuals on whom it placed an immigration hold at state and local jails as having dark or medium complexion. In 2013 that number rose to 96.4 percent. In comparison, from 2007 to 2013, ICE placed an immigration hold on only 1.6 percent of those with fair or light complexion.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">From 2007 to June 2013, ICE arrests in Georgia rose from 1,533 in 2007 to 16,143 in 2013 (through June 2013) — an increase of 953 percent. The figure includes all individuals apprehended by ICE officials in Georgia and those who were arrested by local police and transferred to ICE. It is important to note that the surge in arrests is not a result of an increase in the undocumented population but instead is a reflection of a dramatic expansion in enforcement. </p>
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<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">In light of recent <a href="http://www.acluga.org/news/2013/02/19/foia-docs-released-usa-today-reveal-deportation-quota-drivin" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(38, 119, 185); text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">directives by ICE</a>, which require immigration enforcement field offices to meet certain deportation quotas, the implementation of HB 87 has been even more harmful to Georgians. It led to an increase in checkpoints that target drivers as well as other occupants in a car.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">ICE denies the deportation quota requirement, but documents obtained by the ACLU of North Carolina pursuant to a public records request <a href="http://www.acluga.org/news/2013/02/19/foia-docs-released-usa-today-reveal-deportation-quota-drivin" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(38, 119, 185); text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">prove the contrary</a>. They highlight local officers’ aggressive targeting of undocumented community members to meet the agency's deportation quota — estimated at more than 400,000 people a year.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The documents show checkpoints are a key part of ICE’s strategy to boost deportations, which according to community members are concentrated in Latino neighborhoods. The checkpoints have turned daily commutes to work or even trips to grocery stores into lengthy ordeals complete with harassment for anyone with brown skin complexion. ICE insists it does not organize the checkpoints, but its <a href="http://www.acluga.org/files/9113/6129/0506/2013-02-18_GA_Briefing_Guide_Final_CIRC.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(38, 119, 185); text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">officers</a> “would be set up [at checkpoints] waiting to interview all individuals that [they] deem necessary.”</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The dramatic increase in ICE arrests is a result of a growing collaboration between local law enforcement and ICE. State and local police, corrections officers, probation officials and other officials communicate with ICE about all Georgia residents with whom they come into contact, including witnesses and victims of crime.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Many Georgian families have been torn apart as a result of these practices. While the numbers of children and spouses who lost family members to deportation is underreported, ICE records indicate that an estimated 48,135 American-born children had a parent arrested by ICE in Georgia and at least 17,497 individuals had a spouse arrested by ICE from 2007 to 2013.</p>
<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 26px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">As the rest of the nation focuses on creating more welcoming communities for immigrants, it is unfortunate that the state of Georgia — acting in collusion with ICE — is busy creating roadblocks for the many residents living and working in our state. State lawmakers should immediately repeal the racial profiling law, HB 87, in its entirety. Local communities in Georgia should also join the more than 165 jurisdictions around the country, including cities such as Chicago, Newark, Philadelphia and the state of California, that have prohibited the unconstitutional prolonging of people’s detention on the basis of detainers.</p>
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<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 9px;">Azadeh Shahshahani is the National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project director for the ACLU of Georgia and president of the National Lawyers Guild.</p>
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<p class="editorialPolicy-box" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; position: relative; font-style: italic;">The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera America's editorial policy.</p>
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Tags </h3>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/296" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">immigration</a> </div>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/85" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">immigrant rights</a> </div>
Mon, 11 Aug 2014 14:06:18 +0000Tasha1517 at https://www.nlg.orghttps://www.nlg.org/news/in-the-media/georgia-teams-ice-target-latinos-0#commentsNLG Calls for US to Abide by Human Rights Treaty Obligations and Cease Plans to Detain and Deport Thousands of Child Refugees to Central Americahttps://www.nlg.org/news/releases/nlg-calls-us-abide-human-rights-treaty-obligations-and-cease-plans-detain-and-deport
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<img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.nlg.org/sites/default/files/styles/full_node/public/calls-in-us-congress-for-refugee-status-for-central-american-kids-1403949284-6551.jpg?itok=DSJQVehK" width="400" height="228" alt="" /> </div>
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<span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-07-22T12:00:00-04:00">July 22, 2014</span> </div>
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Tasha Moro </div>
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Communications Coordinator </div>
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<a href="mailto:communications@nlg.org">communications@nlg.org</a> </div>
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212-679-5100, ext. 15 </div>
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<p><span style="line-height: 1.46667em;">NEW YORK -- The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) objects to the President’s decision to detain and expedite deportations of thousands of children fleeing persecution and violence in Central America. The NLG also opposes any efforts by Congress to roll back critical human rights protections – such as the right of an unaccompanied minor to see an immigration judge – in the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization. The Guild is disturbed that the Department of Homeland Security has continued to jail thousands of women and children in hastily erected family detention centers, despite reports of abuse. Detaining and deporting refugees is a wholly inadequate response by the Obama administration and ignores the root causes of this forced migration. The NLG ca</span><span style="line-height: 1.46667em;">lls on the Obama administration to: (1) adhere to its international human rights obligations and designate these children as refugees; (2) halt the expansion of family detention centers; (3) meaningfully respond to reports of abuse; and (4) provide counsel for children to ensure their civil and human rights are protected. </span><span style="line-height: 1.46667em;"> </span></p>
<p>Many of these unaccompanied children describe systemic violence, enslavement, and trafficking in their home countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. According to the UN, the majority of these children reported a targeted fear, such as a death threat or attempted kidnapping, as reasons for their departure. The majority of these children faced an incredibly dangerous journey, often marked by robberies, rape, and assault, to seek refuge in the US and other countries in the region, such as Mexico, Belize, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.</p>
<p>The current refugee influx is not a new phenomenon. For the last four years, several immigrants’ rights and international groups have tracked an increasing exodus of children from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. It is no coincidence that the countries generating the most refugees are on the direct receiving end of harmful US foreign policies, such as the US-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which eviscerated Central American economies; US government interference with democratic policies of leftist governments in Honduras and El Salvador; and US continued support for the “War on Drugs,” pushing cartels from Colombia into Central America. </p>
<p>One stark example of US implication in the recent crisis is its support of the 2009 military coup in Honduras, which gutted democratic and economic reforms, and its continuing support of the coup government. The NLG has sent three delegations to Honduras since the June 2009 coup that ousted democratically elected President Manual Zelaya: (1) shortly after the coup in August 2009; (2) as credentialed election monitors for the November 2013 elections; and (3) last month, on the fifth anniversary of the coup. Based on its interviews and observations, the NLG has consistently expressed its concern about the grave human rights crisis in the country.<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title="" id="_ftnref1">[1]</a></p>
<p>It is unfortunate and telling that the US, despite signing the Convention on the Rights of the Child on February 16, 1995 – an international treaty supported by such broad international consensus that it was ratified by 193 of the 195 sovereign and independent UN members – has continued to tarnish its international reputation by refusing sanctuary to refugee children in their time of need. Smaller countries like Turkey, Kenya and Jordan have offered refuge to millions during comparable human rights crises. For the US, fifty-thousand refugees are entirely manageable. </p>
<p>The US has historically failed to take meaningful, humanitarian action in response to refugee crises.<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title="" id="_ftnref2">[2]</a> This is an opportunity for the country to change that trend. The United States must not abandon its self-proclaimed commitment to human rights when these children need it most. </p>
<p>Already, members of the NLG and its National Immigration Project have joined other groups in filing a class action lawsuit demanding that the US provide children with legal counsel<a href="#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title="" id="_ftnref3">[3]</a> and are investigating reports of abuse in detention centers.<a href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title="" id="_ftnref4">[4]</a> To help remedy this situation and prevent similar ones in the future, the Obama administration must redress US foreign policies that undermine democratically-elected institutions in Central America and fuel the ongoing human rights crisis in the region. </p>
<div><em>The National Lawyers Guild was formed in 1937 as the nation’s first racially integrated bar association to advocate for the protection of constitutional, human and civil rights.</em></div>
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<p><a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title="" id="_ftn1">[1]</a> National Lawyers Guild Honduras delegation reports available at: <a href="http://www.nlginternational.org/report/HONDURAS_FINAL_Prelim_Report_Eng_.pdf">http://www.nlginternational.org/report/HONDURAS_FINAL_Prelim_Report_Eng_.pdf</a> a<span style="line-height: 1.46667em;">nd </span><a href="http://www.nlginternational.org/report/NLG_Honduras_Election_October_2013_Report.pdf" style="line-height: 1.46667em;">http://www.nlginternational.org/report/NLG_Honduras_Election_October_2013_Report.pdf</a></p>
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<p><a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title="" id="_ftn2">[2]</a> One case in point is from June 6, 1939, when the United States government turned away the MS St. Louis, a German trans-Atlantic liner carrying 937 Jewish refugees fleeing from the Third Reich, and forced them to return to Europe. </p>
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<p><a href="#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title="" id="_ftn3">[3]</a> <a href="http://www.nwirp.org/news/viewmediarelease/40062">http://www.nwirp.org/news/viewmediarelease/40062</a> (last visited July 17, 2014)</p>
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<p><a href="#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title="" id="_ftn4">[4]</a> <a href="https://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/unaccompanied-immigrant-children-report-serious-abuse-us-officials-during">https://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/unaccompanied-immigrant-children-report-serious-abuse-us-officials-during</a> (last visited July 17, 2014)</p>
<p>(Photo: Eric Gay/AP)</p>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/381" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">National Immigration Project</a> </div>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/296" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">immigration</a> </div>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/152" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">United Nations</a> </div>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/396" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Honduras</a> </div>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/432" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">El Salvador</a> </div>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/371" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">International Committee</a> </div>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/419" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Task Force on the Americas</a> </div>
Mon, 21 Jul 2014 17:53:25 +0000Tasha1510 at https://www.nlg.orghttps://www.nlg.org/news/releases/nlg-calls-us-abide-human-rights-treaty-obligations-and-cease-plans-detain-and-deport#commentsInterview with National Immigration Project Director Dan Kesselbrennerhttps://www.nlg.org/news/blog/interview-national-immigration-project-director-dan-kesselbrenner
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<img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.nlg.org/sites/default/files/styles/full_node/public/images/Dan%20Kesselbrenner1.jpg?itok=BVNrZLKx" width="400" height="266" alt="" /> </div>
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Azadeh Shahshahani </div>
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<p><em>In light of the major federal immigration reforms proposed this winter, NLG President Azadeh Shahshahani sat down with Dan Kesselbrenner, director of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild (NIPNLG), to talk about their implications and the work and history of the project.</em></p>
<p><strong>Azadeh Shahshahani</strong>: What would the National Immigration Project like to see in an immigration reform proposal?</p>
<p><strong>Dan Kesselbrenner</strong>: We would like to see the proposals include a path to legalization, prioritize keeping families together, demilitarize the borders, protect the labor rights of all workers including the right to organize, increase visas for people from all countries, and allow residence petitions regardless of marital status.</p>
<p>What we’d like to see excluded are: disproportionate punishments for minor past convictions, deportations without due process, mass deportation programs, mandatory detention, universal ID cards, and new databases. </p>
<p><strong>AS</strong>: What needs to happen for us to get there? Do you think we’ll get there this year?</p>
<p><strong>DK</strong>: Congress is not going to enact NIPNLG’s goals any time soon. We have to engage in the difficult process of changing the frame of the debate, which currently puts the emphasis on enforcement as a trade off for a pathway to citizenship. We need to counter divisions that dilute the strength of our communities.</p>
<p>There is a general fear that a compromise would pit people who receive benefits under a new program against others who are kept out and for whom the law becomes even harsher. The group most often thrown under the bus in reform negotiations tend to be those who have had brushes with the criminal justice system. We have to counter this through organizing and principled unity.</p>
<p><strong>AS</strong>: Do you think that the dialogue on immigration in this country has evolved in the past several decades?</p>
<p><strong>DK</strong>: Yes. I have been involved in this work for three decades. During that time I have seen a lot change for the better. The right to be told about immigration consequences of criminal pleas was unheard of when I started working and now even the Supreme Court has recognized that right. Same-sex couples being eligible for benefits was unheard of and now it is within reach. When I started, there was a bar on HIV-positive individuals getting visas. Ideological exclusion was exercised on a wider scale then, too. Today there is greater acceptance of the positive role of immigrants, though there are obviously ebbs and flows.</p>
<p>On the other hand, state and local laws like what we have seen in Arizona and Georgia are worse than what they were decades ago. We are hopeful that those voices are becoming outliers as more and more people realize that our strength as a nation lies in our diversity.</p>
<p><strong>AS</strong>: Could you tell us about other areas of NIPNLG work?</p>
<p><strong>DK</strong>: Collaboration with other parts of the Guild has increased in the past few years. We have held joint trainings with the National Police Accountability Project (NPAP), which is also a project of the NLG. We have had mutual mentoring programs for attorneys. Given the amount of abuse against non-citizens by immigration and local police, we want to help attorneys who are immigration practitioners realize that they can help hold the government accountable and even obtain a financial recovery for their clients. We also want to help civil rights attorneys feel more comfortable with special concerns that non-citizen plaintiffs might have.</p>
<p>NIPNLG itself has held the government accountable on a number of occasions. We were the lead plaintiff in a FOIA action that resulted in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Solicitor General revealing that DHS made a misrepresentation to the Supreme Court in claiming a policy to bring people back to the U.S. who had been erroneously deported. Practitioners had never heard of that policy. The case, <em>National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild v. the Department of Homeland Security</em>, is still pending.</p>
<p>We are very involved in working with DREAMer defense work. We started this work before the administration’s Deferred Action program was implemented in 2012.</p>
<p>We have responded to discriminatory treatment against Muslim Americans throughout the immigration process, whether it be applying for benefits or visas, obtaining bond, fighting selective prosecution, or challenging biased evidence evaluation.</p>
<p>We have responded to the increasing interrelation between the criminal justice and immigration enforcement systems by developing a toolkit on detainers and a deportation defense seminar and by collaborating with both legal practitioners and community organizations.</p>
<p>We also routinely respond to letters from immigrants in detention and, as a result, have built up our jailhouse lawyer membership. Our jailhouse lawyer members often have strong cases and many have won with our support. </p>
<p><strong>AS</strong>: Would you provide us with a snapshot of NIPNLG’s history? When and how did the project start?</p>
<p><strong>DK</strong>: The project started in 1971. We celebrated our 40th anniversary at the 2011 NLG Convention. It came out of the Los Angeles immigration committee of the Guild. The idea was that national project would provide a way to coordinate work and to share ideas and strategize. There were 18 people at the first meeting and now we have about a thousand members. We try to provide both technical excellence and principled politics.</p>
<p>Racism and xenophobia are not new. Attacking immigrant workers is not new. We try to continue the path begun by Carol King and the many other pioneers in protecting immigrants’ human rights. We try to move people to see the connections between immigration and U.S. foreign policy and the role of race, sex, and gender discrimination in enforcement.</p>
<p><strong>AS</strong>: When did you join NIPNLG and why did you start doing this work?</p>
<p><strong>DK</strong>: I joined the project in 1986. Before that, I was co-director of a Central American refugee organization. And previous to that, I was involved in a local community-based immigrants' right group, the Committee Against Deportations. Growing up in New York City, I was very much exposed to the immigrant experience. My parents fled the Nazis who killed my father’s parents during the Holocaust. </p>
<p>In the 1980s, people were fleeing the U.S.-backed military regimes throughout Central America and there was discrimination in who got asylum. Those who fled U.S. allies in Central America rarely got asylum so the Guild brought a class action along with the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU called <em>American Baptist Church v. Thornburg</em>, which highlighted the connections between U.S. foreign policy and immigration policy.</p>
<p>At first, we brought the case as a symbolic effort to increase awareness and promote greater political understanding of the relationship between U.S. foreign policy and immigration, but the government ended up settling in 1991. As a result, 500,000 Salvadorans and Guatemalans got residence. To this day, I can't believe that it actually happened. It was very exciting to be part of something that successfully challenged the government and made a difference in so many people’s lives. </p>
<p><strong>AS</strong>: How do you think NIPNLG's current work and history fit into the larger mission of the NLG?</p>
<p><strong>DK</strong>: Immigrants' rights work has been part of the NLG since the organization was founded. Our work overlaps with other projects and committees of the Guild. There is much overlap with the International Committee, the Queer Caucus, NPAP, and the Anti-Racism Committee. The fight for human dignity in the face of government oppression is one struggle with many fronts.</p>
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<div class="field-tags">
<a href="/taxonomy/term/295" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">NIPNLG</a> </div>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/296" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">immigration</a> </div>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/80" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">human rights</a> </div>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/297" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">crimmigration</a> </div>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/381" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">National Immigration Project</a> </div>
Wed, 20 Mar 2013 16:20:48 +0000Tasha881 at https://www.nlg.orghttps://www.nlg.org/news/blog/interview-national-immigration-project-director-dan-kesselbrenner#comments